


l'impressionnisme

by daddyanchen (sichenqie)



Category: NINE PERCENT (Band), nex7 - Fandom, 偶像练习生 | Idol Producer (TV)
Genre: Exhibitionism, M/M, i have no idea tbh, lowkey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-28 17:52:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15054581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sichenqie/pseuds/daddyanchen
Summary: in which, bi wenjun is a curator and tour guide for an art museum, and zhu zhengting is a passionate art student who visits often.





	l'impressionnisme

**Author's Note:**

> found myself a slippery slope into biting :))
> 
> not really beta'd, so if you find errors, you're welcome to point it out

this is the third time wenjun has seen him walk into the museum today alone. activity like this is usually alerted to security, as it poses a risk for those who are active art thieves, but the setting sun clings to his auburn-brown hair and slaps his face golden; he’s suddenly become a newly discovered painting among the masses of oil and pastels, a new masterpiece to hang with monet and van gogh.

“you must really like art,” wenjun says after he’s built up enough courage to walk over and tap him on the shoulder.

“hmm? oh! yes, i really, really love art. it’s just so beautiful, and i’m studying to be an artist, so i like to come here and just... look, and sketch.”

“you sketch? can i see?”

they spend the next two hours talking about art and his upcoming drawings. zhengting is his name, just as soft and sweet as his voice, melodic. wenjun wishes he could take zhengting’s voice and make it its own painting—dashes of pink and purple and gold.

“oh... we’re closing soon,” wenjun murmurs as he looks at his watch. he hates closing time, genuinely loves his job, but he hates it even more today, wanting more time with zhengting. “will you be back tomorrow?”

“maybe,” zhengting says, stuffing his sketchbook into his bag. “i have class tomorrow and a project, so if i finish in time, maybe i’ll drop by.”

“okay, umm, wait—“ wenjun hurriedly grabs a business card from the front desk, scribbles his phone number on the back. he panics when the pen doesn’t work, panics when he grabs a second pen and finds out the ink wipes away on the laminate, panics as he grabs a third pen and tests it on regular paper before engraving his number into the card. all the while, zhengting stands patiently, watching wenjun with a smile before wenjun hands him the card.

“call me anytime,” he says, flushed and definitely nervous.

zhengting’s smile is like the wide sweep of a paintbrush, soft and subtle but bold and bright. his lips pout slightly, perhaps naturally, and wenjun wants to kiss them.

“maybe we can do dinner. i’d love to continue our conversation about impressionism,” he says, waving at wenjun as he turns to walk away. “i’ll text you!”

zhengting never texts. he also doesn’t come into the museum. wenjun chalks it up to zhengting having class and that project, and he tries not to feel too disappointed about not getting a call from someone he’s only talked to once.

the museum is packed when wenjun sees a familiar face. in the middle of his tour, wenjun excuses himself from the group of elderlies, who keep standing dangerously close to the velvet red ropes, to run over to zhengting.

“hi! hey—zhengting,” he exclaims, slightly winded from nervousness. his lungs feel as if he’d run a mile instead of taken two large leaps to find zhengting.

“oh, hi,” zhengting says, all bright smiles and bushy cheeks. there’s a bit of paint on his chin, but wenjun doesn’t point it out. it’s endearing how much zhengting loves art.

you never texted, wenjun wants to say, but the words stick in his mouth. who is he to demand an explanation from art? zhengting is all collarbones and white skin, all flowy white cotton and dark slacks. he’s something out of a pissarro painting, soft and bright, like _[sunrise on the sea.](https://uploads6.wikiart.org/images/camille-pissarro/sunrise-on-the-sea.jpg!Large.jpg)_

“sorry i didn’t text,” zhengting finally says, looking up at wenjun and smiling, soft, sweet, gentle, perhaps devilish. “i got caught up with my project.”

“that’s okay, that’s fine,” wenjun says. He hears the elderlies call for him, but he wants to keep talking to zhengting.

“do you have a tour right now?” zhengting asks.

“yeah…” he mutters, trying to come up with an excuse for why doesn’t need to go back to it.

“could I tag along? and then maybe on a different day, you can give me a private tour,” zhengting suggests, and wenjun trips over his feet as he waves zhengting back over to the group, lets him join the tour as he continues to point out post-modernist paintings and modern sketches (to which all the elders groan about modern art being trash). his eyes never leave zhengting’s face, all scrunched and focused, all hands scribbling down mediums and dimensions, all pencil scratches and outlines of famous art.

the tour ends earlier than expected, ends because wenjun had rushed through everything so that the elderlies could wander the art for a little bit without him having to talk. he stands besides zhengting, forgets that they’re supposed to be looking at the paintings on the wall, and all wenjun can do is stare at zhengting.

“have you eaten yet?” wenjun asks, fingers wringing together behind his back.

“no. i’ve been busy,” zhengting says, checking his phone as it buzzes.

“let me take you out for dinner,” wenjun says, maybe a little too loudly. “i… let me treat you… before you disappear and not call me again.” it sounds bitter and desperate, but wenjun means it as a joke (but really, he may sound a little desperate).

zhengting smiles up at wenjun and pockets his phone. “sure,” he says. “take me out to dinner.”

dinner is nice. there’s no talk of artwork, no talk of paint mixes and famous artists. it’s just zhengting, wenjun, and two bowls of noodles.

“it’s not much, but i swear, this place has amazing noodles,” wenjun promises, and zhengting just laughs and smiles at him, tells him it’s no big deal, tells him that he’ll eat anything.

and wenjun tells zhengting he’s never seen anyone prettier than him, and he’s sure he blushes harder than zhengting.

“you’re sweet,” zhengting says when he finishes his food. “i don’t meet enough sweet people. i’m into the bad boys.”

i can be a bad boy, wenjun wants to say, but zhengting stands up and grabs his bag. wenjun follows closely before zhengting grabs his hand. “walk me home,” he says, and wenjun does, walks him to his apartment, walks him up to the door, and he kisses zhengting softly on the cheek.

“kiss me on the lips next time,” zhengting says, disappearing into his apartment.

wenjun stands there with a pounding heart before he realizes he has a forty-minute walk home.

their dates have been consistent ever since. zhengting still frequents the museum, asks about art pieces, their history, the dimensions, the colors, the restoration process—and wenjun is too happy to give him all the information. they become an official couple when wenjun asks zhengting, “what are we?” on a summer evening, sitting at the table of a rooftop restaurant overlooking the city.

“whatever you want us to be,” zhengting answers, sipping on burgundy wine, matches the color of his lips.

“i want us to be together, like... boyfriends,” wenjun says, still nervous after all this time.

zhengting’s eyes wander over the city, his smile hidden behind his glass. “okay.”

after dinner, wenjun kisses zhengting in the back of a cab, kisses down his jawline and nips at his neck, smiles against the line of his collarbone when zhengting gasps and clings to wenjun’s arms. the cab driver kicks them out a block away from wenjun’s apartment, but wenjun just laughs and kisses zhengting again as he carries him to his apartment, drunk on zhengting’s kisses.

wenjun fucks zhengting against the front door, barely waiting to get inside of his apartment to take their clothes off. wenjun has only ever been intimate with two people, and neither compares to how zhengting feels and moves. he’s slick like oil paint slipping down a canvas, slipping down the canvas of wenjun’s body. he’s soft and warm and beautiful with those sculpted cheeks and bright eyes, makes wenjun want to gouge them out and keep them forever, sparkling midnight stars and comets—and every time zhengting touches wenjun, it’s adding water into watercolor. it spreads, and suddenly wenjun is painted reds and purples and blues, zhengting’s own canvas to mark up however he wants with those perfect teeth of his.

wenjun wakes up early the next morning and cooks zhengting breakfast, and zhengting kisses him like they’d been married for two years.

they date for another three months before zhengting asks, “can i come stay with you at work?”

zhengting knows wenjun is the last to leave, last to lock up, last to tuck the paintings into bed and sing them lullabies. wenjun doesn’t hesitate to say yes.

they stay much later after hours, and wenjun let’s zhengting have free range of the entire museum, smiles as zhengting runs up to paintings and recites all the information he has on it, points to sculptures and admires the way it’s carved.

all this art around, and yet, wenjun can’t take his eyes off of zhengting—bright, pure zhengting who lights up at the mention of art and devours information on the subject.

“i think this is the painting that made me want to be a dancer at some point,” zhengting murmurs as his hand barely grazes the edges of the frame— _[la classe de danse,](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/81/Edgar_Degas_-_The_Ballet_Class_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/800px-Edgar_Degas_-_The_Ballet_Class_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)_ 1873–1876, oil on canvas, degas. 

“i think this is my favorite exhibit,” zhengting says as he wanders through the halls of degas.

“oh, what a shame,” wenjun says. “we’re closing this exhibit next week.”

zhengting whips around, eyes wide and lips quivering. “why?”

“we’re making room for our new exhibit. it’s featuring you.” it’s cheesy and wenjun shakes the whole time he delivers the punch line, but he visibly relaxes when he sees zhengting’s shoulders drop and his eyes go soft the way metal does under heat.

“don’t scare me like that!” zhengting yells as he runs at wenjun, jumps and wraps his legs around wenjun’s hips and kisses him hard.

“ow, wait, ‘ting,” wenjun mutters. he pries zhengting’s body away from his for a moment to unpin his name tag from the lapel of his uniform.

“you always wear that thing,” zhengting says, an observation.

“i like it.”

“more than you like me?” zhengting has those puppy eyes and stares right into wenjun’s eyes.

“no,” wenjun breathes. “i fucking love you.” 

they fuck in the middle of the exhibit. even though they both know that it’s only the two of them in the entire museum, there’s an atmosphere of getting caught, being walked in on, seen. their moans and grunts echo through the empty museum, its own music, its own art. zhengting is on the ground, wenjun’s blazer beneath him to shield him from the cold tile, as wenjun fucks hard into him, watches the way he throws his head back in pleasure, back arched. his heart skips a beat or two when zhengting looks at him, all soft and large eyes and pink, swollen lips.

“wenjun,” zhengting whines, all bitten lips and perfect, all splayed out like damn art in the middle of the museum. 

wenjun finds out the next day that they had gotten come on one of the velvet ropes in the exhibit. 

it’s on a clear, still night that wenjun hears something unusual in the museum. it’s a total of seven months since he’s started dating zhengting. he’d forgotten to tell zhengting he was staying late at the museum, but zhengting had told wenjun that he was taking the weekend to hang out with some friends, which wenjun didn’t particularly mind.

wenjun grabs a flashlight as he tiptoes his way back into the exhibit, careful not to disturb any of the alarms they’d already set in place. his heart beats faster as he realizes the noise is coming from the degas exhibit—zhengting’s exhibit. he rounds the corner and shines his flashlight at the intruder, shines his flashlight as the man who is stealing a precious painting, shines this flashlight as the man who has stolen his heart many times over.

“zhengting?” 

“wenjun… i didn’t know you were still here,” zhengting says, as if wenjun had only caught him sneaking an extra cookie after midnight, not dressed in all black with leather gloves, broken guild frame in pieces around him as he’s halfway to putting the canvas of _la classe de danse_ into the plastic cover. 

they’ve been still, been silent for too long.

“what… what are you doing?” wenjun breathes, confused and scared. he thought zhengting loved art. 

“hey, hey—don’t… don’t cry,” zhengting says, and wenjun shakes his head. he’s not going to cry. does it look like he’s going to cry? “wenjun, i love you.” 

oh… those words make his heart skip a beat, but he’s not sure if it should be skipping at a time like this. 

“wenjun, do you love me?”

“yes.” no hesitation.

“do you trust me?”

“yes.” no hesitation.

“help me steal this painting.” 

wenjun holds his breath for a whole second before he finally nods his head. he takes a step forward, grabs zhengting by the waist and kisses him hard, kisses him until he runs out of breath, kisses him until the alarms go off because wenjun forgot that there was a sensor right behind the rope they were leaning against. 

“let’s go,” zhengting says as he stuffs the painting into his bag, carefully, gingerly. wenjun catches a glimpse of _[the swing](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/eb/Fragonard%2C_The_Swing.jpg/800px-Fragonard%2C_The_Swing.jpg)_ and _[boulevard montremarte](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1f/The_Boulevard_Montmartre_on_a_Winter_Morning.JPG/1024px-The_Boulevard_Montmartre_on_a_Winter_Morning.JPG)_ on a winter morning. 

wenjun follows zhengting out the back door of the museum and climbs into the back of a van with him, disoriented when he sees several other faces staring at him. it’s almost like he’s in _[luncheon of the boating party.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/Pierre-Auguste_Renoir_-_Luncheon_of_the_Boating_Party_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/1280px-Pierre-Auguste_Renoir_-_Luncheon_of_the_Boating_Party_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)_

“who’s this?” the driver says.

“this is wenjun, my boyfriend,” zhengting says, kissing his cheek and leaning his head on his shoulder.

“bullshit, he’s way out of your league,” a younger boy says.

“shut the fuck up, justin. let’s just get out of here—zeren?”

zeren—the driver—shifts gears and immediately heads off. zooming down the road to who knows where, wenjun shifts uncomfortably as something stabs against his chest. he looks down and pulls his nametag off of his lapel. he rolls down the window and tosses it out.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments always appreciated!! :))
> 
> find me: [twt](https://twitter.com/daddyanchen) / [cc](https://curiouscat.me/daddyanchen)


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